Friday, September 26, 2008

This bike is sad.My own bike was sad, but is now happy again. Here's the story:

I was out for a much-needed ride when my bike stopped shifting. Completely stopped. I was stuck in the highest gear for my limp home. I discovered my rear shifter cable had broken.I called the Brentwood Bike Company, my local shop, and owner Bobbi said they'd look at it that day! When Chris (owner-husband-cool dude) got the new cable threaded through the tricky internal sections of my Kestrel RT 700 it still wouldn't shift. It appeared the brake/shifter had broken. That's a major big dollar part. "Oh no" I was thinking.

About ready to spend the money, we discovered that the problem was that the broken cable end had fallen into, and become wedged inside of the lever. Chris polked, prodded then fished and shook until it came out. He recabeled, adjusted a bent derailleur hanger in the process and shazam, all better. Now my bike is a lot more happy than the bike in the photo.

Thanks Chris and your Brentwood Bicycle Company for seeing me right away and figuring out how to fix my problem and not just replace an expensive part!

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Thanks to everyone for their financial and moral support of our Waves to Wine bicycle ride for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

We wore ourselves out. The 75 miles each day wasn't so far, but the 7000 feet or so of climbing was really tough. This ride was a lot harder than the 100 mile a day ride we did from Seattle to Portland earlier this year. I was worn out Saturday from playing too much tennis on Friday, and really worn out on Sunday. Tricia and i took turns feeling good. She was a rock on Sunday morning when I was sore and trying to feel warm. I started feeling pretty good about halfway through Sunday when the sun came out. Together we pulled each other through.

There was hardly a level spot along the route. We were either going up or down. We spent about five or six hours a day on the bike, though what with lunch and a few rest stops the total trip time was closer to seven.

Our route took us from AT&T park across the Golden Gate Bridge, up Hwy 1 past Tomales Bay and to Cotati for the night.

Day two looped us back toward Peteluma, then up to Sebastopol for lunch then onward to Healdsburg and up to Lake Sonoma for a bus ride back to the start.

We knew we'd ridden a long way when we took the bus back. That darn shuttle took forever!